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Roasted Yellow Beet Salad With Warm Maple Mustard Dressing

It’s hard to be inspired to cook in these winter months. It’s like “OK pumpkin, you’re overstaying your welcome.” And “I get it root vegetables, you’re earthy and delicious. Yawn.” Even harder is getting in your salad greens! Lettuce doesn’t exactly warm the soul after trudging through the slush in single digit temperatures. But hold off on ordering that pizza, I’ve got a remedy! Dress that salad in something warm and inviting. And to sweeten the deal, this dressing has only 2 ingredients (well, 3 if you count water, but stop nitpicking!) Obviously you can just make the salad and dressing and it will be ready in mere minutes, but if a hearty salad is your heart’s desire then the whole shebang comes together easily. The beets humbly roast away with minimum prep as the tempeh marinates. You’ll really only have 15 minutes or so of hands-on time and then earthy, tangy, smoky, sweet flavors will be all yours.

In the meanwhile, you can warm yourself with other activities – like a bubble bath or stoking the fireplace or searching the internet for deals on tropical vacations. What? That Mac balanced on your lap gives off some heat, don’t pretend you haven’t noticed.

If you don’t feel like having the Smoky Tempeh Croutons, some toasted pecans would be great in this, too!

For the beets:

4 small yellow beets, peeled

Preheat oven to 425 F. Wrap beets in tin foil and roast for an hour. Remove from oven, unwrap and slice when they stop steaming.

Mix all marinade ingredients together in a bowl. Add tempeh pieces and marinade for an hour.

Preheat a large cast iron pan over medium-high heat. Remove tempeh from marinade and saute in a little olive oil or cooking spray. When they’re browned (about 7 minutes) splash in some extra marinade and toss to coat. Remove from heat.

This definitely helped put salad back on the winter menu. Made this last night and your chickpea-rice-cabbage-dill soup tonight, great hearty meal to fight the negative temps! Loved the warm dressing/smokey combo. Thanks for all the fabulous recipes, your latest cookbook is on the way to our door to join your other books in our kitchen

Here is our web site for our easy method of making tempeh at home. http://www.makethebesttempeh.org
We produced Betsy’s Tempeh in Michigan for 9 1/2 years and developed a new method and now we are showing people how they too can make it at home. We are currently working on another simpler version so please stay in touch.

Ok seriously, this is so delicious. I pretty much ate it while I was preparing it and skipped the arugula and red onions because of it. I loved the way the smoky tempeh set off the maple-mustard and the sweetness of the beets. Just perfection even skipping the arugula (and I am a *fiend* for arugula). Thanks, Isa!

I made this tonight and it was DELIGHTFUL and perfectly autumnal. I realized at the last minute that I was out of stone ground mustard, so substituted Dijon – it came out really, really well but I have no doubt that it would be even better with stoneground. God bless, Isa!

I like everything but I really don’t like tempeh – its texture, the bitter after taste, all of it. It is my green eggs. But this recipe makes it pretty good!! The marinade is to die for. If you are squeamish about liquid smoke, use lapsang souchong tea. Steep it for 15-20 minutes and use 2/4 cup of that in place of the veggie stock. My my my!!!